Name: Neo-Classical Thanksgiving Dressing with Apricots and Prunes, Stuffed in a Whole Pumpkin
Yield: Makes 1 medium-large stuffed pumpkin
Ingredients: 1 cup dried apricots; 1 cup dried pitted prunes; 1 cup apple juice; 1 loaf good-quality commercially made presliced whole wheat bread; 1 large onion, diced; 1 to 2 stalks leafy celery, diced (leaves included); 1 1/2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon dried leaf (not ground) sage; 1/4 cup butter, melted; Vegetable stock (see tip, below) as needed; Tamari or shoyu soy sauce to taste; A small amount of dried leaf basil and oregano to taste (optional); Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste; Cooking spray (optional); 1 medium-large pumpkin, preferably one of the buff-colored pumpkins, prepared as follows:

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Neo-Classical Thanksgiving Dressing with Apricots and Prunes, Stuffed in a Whole PumpkinLara Ferroni

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Crescent Dragonwagon's book Passionate Vegetarian. Dragonwagon also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page.

This is my favorite Thanksgiving stuffing — in fact, this is my only Thanksgiving stuffing. I've made it for at least twenty-five years, and it's always pleased me, friends, family, and inn guests. To my taste, it wouldn't be right with margarine or oil, just butter. But probably it wouldn't be bad with less fat or a different one. I make the vegetarian version with vegetable stock, for use in a pumpkin; when I cooked at the inn, where the majority of the guests were meat eaters, I also did a batch with turkey stock.

I dedicate this recipe to the memory of Sondra Krecker, a friend from my earliest years in Eureka Springs. Every Thanksgiving as I make it I hear her telling me again, earnestly, "You have to toast it dry, bone dry, hard dry." You'll need to do a lot of tossing and tasting to get the seasonings just right. Stuffing can be made ahead of time, but don't stuff it into the pumpkin until you're ready to bake it.

Crescent Dragonwagon shares her tips with Epicurious:

• If you don't have time to make your own vegetable stock, Dragonwagon recommends the dark vegetable stock by Kitchen Basics. Packaged or homemade, these stocks are certainly healthier than meat stocks, but as Dragonwagon notes in Passionate Vegetarian, a high-quality vegetable stock does not sacrifice flavor: "It is good stock that underpins the glossy, piquant, sweet, or hot sauces that transform tofu, tempeh, and seitan from plain basics to genuinely satisfying dishes that speak cogently of abundance, not deprivation or blandness for the sake of health."

Recipe notes